Well, paint me red and call me a girl scout, I totally did not see this one coming at all. This is so utterly surprising it made my brain explode. Hold on to your panties, because this will rock your world. After pressuring several smaller Android vendors into submission (and yes, HTC is still relatively small compared to other players), Microsoft is now moving on to the big one: Redmond is demanding $15 for every Samsung Android device sold. Samsung's choices are simple: pay up, or face another epic lawsuit.

When Android was in google labs, noone cared. Yet now every company owning a patent remotely doing something related to Linux, Java, touch screen, wants a toll. I bet HTC got very good terms, therefore they accepted - hint: they do make WP7 phones. Samsung is a big fish however. They will countersue and we'll see a settlement without disclosing any terms. And max $5 per phone IMHO.

Also this seems to look as a kind of coordinated effort of Apple and MS. Too big to fail, they have power to affect (lobby) their legal system to serve them a purpose in extortionism.

One "unfortunate" thing: this only covers phones sold in USA due to US patents, and sw patents are mostly absent form other major economies with few exceptions. This is not some high luxury market where most of money comes from US - people use phones anywhere around the world, and that includes smartphones. Most are going to shell out enough cash to get one.